Sharon Coffee-Dean, ID Theft, New York 2012

Former Social Security Administration employee Sharon Coffee-Dean and two others have been indicted for stealing and selling IDs, leading to fraudulent tax returns in New York.

According to the indictments, Coffee-Dean, a former SSA employee, stole the IDs of 41 people from SSA records, which she then sold to other individuals who used them to file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS.

Coffee-Dean was also charged with conspiring to defraud the SSA and faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy, five years for fraud and related activity in connection with means of identification, 10 years for the misuse of a social security number as an SSA employee and a mandatory minimum of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft.

Two other Queens residents, Kishore Jattan and Michael Bratton, were also indicted for identity theft-related crimes. Jattan allegedly stole student IDs from packages he delivered for a university in New York and sold the stolen IDs to other individuals who used the IDs to file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS.

Bratton purchased stolen IDs and provided them to a co-conspirator for the purpose of filing fraudulent tax returns with the IRS. Both Jattan and Bratton face a statutory maximum sentence of five years for fraud and related activity in connection with means of identification, five years for misuse of a social security number, and a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft.

The indictment against Coffee-Dean alleges that from approximately December 2011 through January 2012, she stole the IDs of 41 people from SSA records and sold them to other individuals who used them to file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS.

The investigations were conducted by special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the SSA Office of the Inspector General, New York Field Division. Trial Attorneys Mark Kotila and Ann M. Cherry of the Tax Division are prosecuting these cases.

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